The present invention relates to a mating type electric connector box structure, and more particularly to an electric connector box structure suitable for making an electric wiring light-weight and simple at a partition board section, that is, a dash panel section which separates an engine room from a cabin in an automobile.
Electric connector box known in the field of the art includes a fuse box, a relay box or a connector box collectively incorporating desired electric circuits which are provided with connectors and terminals to be connected with electric parts such as various loads, switches and connectors at an external portion thereof.
As shown in FIG. 5, there has been proposed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 57-38457 that four connector boxes 1, 2, 3 and 4 are distributedly located at suitable positions in an engine room A and a cabin B for the purpose of simplifying an electric wiring system in the automobile.
In the aforementioned conventional system, the connector box 1 located in the engine room A and the connector boxes 2 and 4 located in the cabin B are separately arranged with a partition board (dash panel) C interposed therebetween. Accordingly, it is necessary to install grommets 5 as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 55-44317 for the purpose of preventing moisture, toxic gas and noise in the engine room A from entering the cabin B. Further, many wires and connectors must be used for connection between the connector box 1 and the connector boxes 2 and 4 to generate the following problems.
(1) In an assembling step of a combined electric wire (wiring harness) for the automobile, much labor and time are required for attachment of the grommets to result in installation inefficiency.
(2) As many connectors and wires are required for interconnection between the connector boxes, the weight and number of parts are increased to result in increase in the manufacturing cost of wire harnesses.
(3) The connector is generally of such a type that a male terminal 6 is inserted into a female terminal 7 as shown in FIG. 6, and a clearance at an insertion part 8 of the female terminal 7 is narrow for the purpose of enhancing a contact pressure between both the members 6 and 7. Thus, a direction of connection between the members 6 and 7 is so limited that with increase of terminals a large insertion or release force is required for engaging and disengaging the members 6 and 7, thus resulting in working inefficiency.